Preface:
Last Saturday, I flew to Washington DC to speak at a conference. My flights home were cancelled to ice in Dallas Fort Worth. To make matters worse, a big storm was coming in so there would be no flights out of Reagan on Monday. After 3 hours of waiting in line and arguing with an American airlines ticket agent, I got an evening flight on US Air to Indianapolis. Spent the night in the airport as my flight out to Phoenix left at 6 AM. Got home about 9:30 Monday morning. Thanks to the airport bivy and flight debacle, I developed a wicked sinus infection. Antibiotics to the rescue.
I desperately needed an altitude adjustment and time with friends. Sally and Marilyn kindly joined me. When we reached the dry waterfall, we were pleasantly surprised to see a little water flowing. Other changes were ahead. We had to find a way around a large downed tree that we used to go under. When we reached the first patches of snow, we saw a single pair of footprints. Climbing out of the canyon was a bit easier as the snow helped to keep the rocks from moving.
At the saddle, we donned microspikes before continuing up the ridge. We started encountering fallen rime ice over snow, which made uphill progress a bit more challenging.
Our first good view of Ontario's west shoulder.
Looking back at the Baldy bowl.
Looking east from the our ridge. The hiker who had come up FRC before us had donned snowshoes around this point.
Once we reached the plateau, we saw big horn sheep and cougar tracks. We were now in direct sunlight and started to get hot.
The view of Baldy from Ontario -- the snow is already melting off the bowl
Looking west.
Looking south. I liked the curlicue clouds.
Sally and I switched to short sleeves to cool off. When we started to descend, we discovered the previous hiker had gone back down FRC -- no thanks. Thus, we were the first hikers to go from Ontario over to the Kelly's camp/Big Horn peak junction. Although the virgin snow was pretty, it made finding the trail more difficult. The snow was also wet, which significantly slowed our progress. It felt like walking in sand at the beach.
Due to the warm temperatures, it was a relief to descend in shade after we summited Big Horn. I took one last shot of Baldy:
We thought we would have a relaxing descent once we reached Icehouse Saddle. Didn't happen. Even with microspikes, we slid around on the messy snow almost to the Cucamonga wilderness sign.
Another surprise -- the storm had washed out large sections of the trail. It was sometimes hard to differentiate the trail from the creek bed. What a relief to reach the TH. I think I'll wait a while before heading back into the Cucamonga wilderness.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
